I have an option to take a course to get a certification for my job. My boss is giving me an option to choose from either LPIC or RHCSA.

I work with Windows often and do not have much experience with Linux. My new role involves around troubleshooting a linux system (RedHat, no GUI).

Which course/certification would you guys recommend?
And if don't mind sharing a bit more, what are the Pros and Cons for each?

Thank you for your help in advance.

Edit: thank you all very much for your input. I wish to thank all of you personally but rather not to make this thread neater, and in hopes that it'll be easier for others with similar interest to read. Thanks again!

RHCSA is generally considered to be far more rigorous than LPIC, as the test involves configuring and fixing a live system as opposed to multiple choice questions. LPIC, however is vendor neutral and cheaper (through you will need to take two tests per level).

I would suggest RHCSA, but then taking LPIC afterwards. Better if you reach out and get the RHCE after the RHCSA.

I think it would be reasonable for a newbie to be able to use this book and the labs, however it will take you all the way to a RHCE level, so it's hardly a "for dummies" read. It is for more experienced people, but I think it makes you more experienced via the labs.

Use Amazon EC2's free server hosting for your labs, it will be much faster setup than tinkering around with VirtualBox. http://aws.amazon.com/free/

You do understand that I can't divulge what did and did not help me on the test due to RedHat's draconian policy regarding test feedback, right? They'll revoke your certification if you are found to be saying what is and isn't on the test (for example, on reddit)

Few, if any, employers will care about the LPIC. In my experience, the RHCE is something that many employer recognize as a valid way of demonstrating a specific level of knowledge that is extremely valuable in any organization.

I got my RHCE early on in my advancement from tech support monkey to sysadmin, and it was the thing that bumped my salary from the low end to the mid-high end of the range hiring managers were willing to offer me.

If you can, go for the RHCSA. I'm in Japan and the test isn't offered here so I took the LPIC-1 instead (or rather, I took Linux+ which is the same as the LPIC-1 exam and you get both certifications). The LPIC-1 exam was crap. It's nothing but memorization of command line switches and there are a few fill in the blank questions where you have to actually type in the answer exactly as they expect it. I studied for 1 week and passed, but the command line switch memorization left me wanting to strangle some developers for not having any consistency (is it -c, -C, -f, -F, or -QwERtsdF to load a configuration file?). The RHCE/RHCSA exams are much better geared toward showing an actual understanding of Linux/Red Hat rather than showing that you can simply memorize some stuff.

I actually disagree a little bit with everyone else. I have my RHCE and while the test did require 'fixing' a live system, it wasn't very rigorous. Most of the test was simple and very RedHat. I'm now amazing at typing 'rpm', but I don't know how to compile software...(joke) I really don't feel RHCE covered all tasks required to be a competent Linux admin. The LPIC tests (notice I pluralize them, LPIC-1 is obviously easy) cover more of these true skills IMHO. You have to understand many different applications (Samba, Bind, Apache, NFS), use low level admin commands (sed, awk, etc), know how to secure your system, tune system parameters for better performance and many other things. These skills are fundamental in being a highly sought after admin.